World Cup: Round 1

All of the top 10 favorites moved on. Four of the ten US players (Kamsky, Onischuk, Akobian, and Shabalov) survive to round 2. Akobian had the longest day of the surivors, having to play four rapid games and ten (!) blitz games to defeat his first round opponent.

The Top Seeds:

1) Boris Gelfand 1.5-0.5
2) Vugar Gashimov 2.0-0.0
3) Peter Svidler 2.0-0.0
4) Alexander Morozevich 2.0-0.0
5) Teimour Radjabov 2.0-0.0
6) Vassily Ivanchuk 2.0-0.0
7) Rusian Ponomariov 1.5-0.5
8) Alexander Grischuk 1.5-0.5
9) Dmitry Jakovenko 1.5-0.5
10) Yue Wang 2.0-0.0

Team USA:

27) Gata Kamsky 1.5-0.5
35) Alexander Onischuk 1.5-0.5
71) Varuzhan Akobian 1.0-1.0, Rapid: 2.0-2.0. Blitz 6.0-4.0
74) Yuri Shulman 1.0-1.0, Rapid: 2.0-2.0. Blitz: 0.5-1.5 (eliminated on day 3)
85) Alexander Shabalov 1.0-1.0, Rapid: 2.0-2.0, Blitz: 1.5-0.5
86) Jaan Ehlvest 0.5-1.5 (eliminated on day 2)
103) Robert Hess 0.5-1.5 (eliminated on day 2)
104) Ray Robson 0.5-1.5 (eliminated on day 2)
109) Joshua Friedel 0.5-1.5 (eliminated on day 2)
110) Alexander Ivanov 0.5-1.5 (eliminated on day 2)

Difference from 2007:

One improvement over the 2007 World Cup is the amount of rapid games played before they move on to blitz, and the number of blitz games that were played before moving on to an Armageddon game. In 2007, only two rapid games were played before moving on to blitz, and only two blitz games were played before playing the 6/5 Armageddon game. This time the first tie-breaker is a 4-game rapid match, followed by 5 two-game blitz matches. If all seven of these matches are tied, then there is an Armageddon play-off. Of the twenty matches that went to tie-breaks, fourteen were decided in the rapid games, and five more were decided by the first blitz match. Only Akobian's match went all ten games. Had his opponent won the last blitz game, only then the match would have gone to Armageddon.

Format:

The Knock-out format to determine a candidate for the World Championship is a poor one in my opinion. Some time ago, FIDE suggested that instead of a knock-out, they would do two stages of round robins, and then a final match (sort of a sped up Candidates tournament). The 128 players would be split up into 16 groups of 8 and would play round-robins. The 16 winners would then be paired again into 2 groups of 8 and play another round robin. The two winners would then play a 4-game match to determine the overall winner. Although not without its flaws, this would be vastly superior to the knock-out format.

The current knock-out system ensures that 50% of the field will play a grand total of 2 rated games. Many of them will travel thousands of miles to play two games against a player that is 200 or 300 ELO points above them. Seven-eights (112 out of 128 players) will play six rated games or less, not even enough for a GM norm.

With the suggested format, all players will get to play at least seven games. The bottom 10 ranked players have good chances to score at least a consolation point since they're not paired against one of the top 15 or so players in the world. With less emphasis on rapid and blitz games, the best player in each group is much more likely to advance.

Personally, I think instead of a complicated round robin struggle, a simple swiss tournament should be used. Make the tournament say a 13 round or a 15 round swiss, and instead of qualifying just one player, make sure the first eight or ten move on to the next stage.

It is practically impossible to come up with a tournament that can reliably whittle 128 players down to 1 in just three weeks. Since the world championship is at stake, it would be safer to whittle down to 8 or 10 players. Although the player who "should" win the tournament may not be 1st in such a large field, he should be in the top 10.